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According to her, one of these should appeal to him above all others. It should call to him so clearly that its owner was sure to be compatible with him on a biological level — compatible enough that simply existing near them could begin to purge the rot still pulsing into his body from the wellspring in his carotid artery. Passive recovery, they called it.
Astarion has been mated to a monster for 20 years, a nightmare with no way out. When he finds himself faced with the prospect of freedom, the possibility is overwhelming. How could he get by on his own when just getting through the day is a battle? Fortunately, there's a lifeline, a voluntary program that matches people who have suffered a great trauma with a volunteer whom they are scent-compatible with. By simply sharing a home with this person, healing comes faster than it ever could alone. Astarion is paired with Wyll Ravengard, a young man who has done more for the program than almost anyone else.
It's a simple arrangement - move in, get better, and move on without giving a new alpha any chance to harm him. After all they've suffered, who would expect feelings to complicate matters?
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One of Astarion’s siblings wanted to leave the settlement in the Underdark and needed a different place to stay. Were it any of the others, Shadowheart would have scoffed and written back to tell Astarion to go fuck himself before inviting him out to the farm for a visit. It wasn’t any of the others, though. It was Leon, whose daughter had already witnessed more than one lifetime of horrors and didn’t deserve to be subjected to more.
After realizing the a settlement of 7,000 vampire spawn is a horribly unsafe place to raise a human child, Leon reaches out to the only one of his 'siblings' to have made a real life for themselves and asks for a different option. Astarion sends him to Shadowheart's doorstep. Her little farm in the countryside is the perfect place to recuperate, and she's already saved Victoria once, whether Leon knows that or not. It might just be the perfect place for the two of them to land. Plenty of things can grow in good soil when you finally have time for planting.
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It would come back again. Maybe he might be lucky enough to go years in between, but soon enough, the itch would return. In a way, this was rather fitting. His body never had learned how to stop craving the worst things that had ever happened to it.
A deal with a devil isn't a bond so easily broken. Even after Mizora is gone, Wyll finds himself going through a sort of withdrawals. An infernal itch lives beneath his skin, banished only upon fulfilling the conditions of his old pact - the death of something infernal, demonic, heartless, or soulless. A vampire ascendant fits the criteria quite nicely, if you can stand the pain of coming close enough to kill one.
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Gale stood alone atop the last evil left to face, and death did not fulfill its promise of oblivion. There was no comforting dark embrace nor any gentle erasing of hardships.
After sacrificing himself to defeat the Netherbrain, Gale doesn't fade quietly into death. He becomes one with the Weave, indistinguishable from the magic he loves. Every use of it anywhere in the realm feels as if it is delivered by his hands.
Written as 28 sequential drabbles to fill 28 prompts for Febuwhump 2026
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On Main Street, between the circling cop cars, a path of flesh probably ran from a pothole to the flaming wreckage of Steve’s bike.
A foot to the left and he would have died. -
Welcome to the Family by GhostInTheClawMachine for backflips
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
12 Feb 2026
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“I can’t always come first to him, Astarion,” Wyll said. “He’s a state senator. He has more important things to worry about sometimes. I understand that.”
“Well, I don’t," Astarion said. “I don’t understand it, and I certainly don’t have anything more important to worry about. I’m glad you have him in your life again — really, I am, even if he’s driving me even grayer than I already am — but it’s so new. You already let him treat you worse than you deserve to keep him around. How much worse is it going to be at a wedding?”
Only eight months after ending their estrangement, Wyll receives an invitation to his father's wedding and attends with his partner, Astarion. A fragile relationship, two important people at odds, and the peaceful, zero-stress environment of a wedding - what could go wrong?
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One More Boy, One More Lie by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
06 Dec 2025
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The stories grew more fanciful, a snowball rolling downhill as it passed from person to person. The Blade had plucked a harpy straight from the sky and stolen its wings for himself. The Blade had felled an army of goblins with no weapon but the jawbone he ripped from the first of their corpses. The Blade would show up when your need was greatest and turn the tide of unwinnable battles as easily as one might snap a dying branch. The Blade would not confirm, and he would not deny. When a traveler more daring than most worked up the nerve to ask him the source of his triumph, his answer was always the same — some secrets are too important not to keep.
The Blade of Frontiers is the greatest hero the realm has ever known, a man of strength from mysterious origins. Astarion, a prostitute working in the Tourmaline Depths who has won the Blade's affection, is approached by a powerful patron with an offer - reveal the source of the man's strength and be rewarded. An easy bargain, yes? What reason could there be not to throw the Blade to the wolves?
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The man in the woods didn’t inspire dread at first glance. He wandered as aimlessly as a week old lamb, lifting one hand to trail it through the sweeping branches of the willows on either side of him.
A strange man wanders near Forest Hills, straying near lingering danger. A callous prince controls the palace, holding Eddie’s fate in his capricious hands. They look the same, though they couldn’t be more different — two men in the same body in a way that shouldn’t be possible in the wake of magic being purged from the kingdom. It would be wiser to weather the consequences for thievery with his head down rather than involve himself in a mystery, but Eddie has never been known for his wisdom.
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It had taken only a few days of playing unwilling host for Wyll to learn the signs that his dreams hadn’t remained his own; by now, he had thoroughly mastered it. As his eyes fluttered open, his temples ached. There was a rapidly fading pressure there, pulsing as the tadpole backed away from his skull and the tendrils that had projected his memories retracted under the weight of consciousness. At least it had been a kind memory this time. The party would wake cocooned in fond recollections of childhood with a father far softer than the one that existed now rather than choking on bile as they had after being subjected to glimpses of the Blood War.
After a fond childhood memory is accidentally shared with the party while Wyll sleeps, he discovers that the mermaid he once discovered in the harbor was not a mermaid at all. There are far crueler things in the waters of Baldur's Gate than the imagination of a child can picture.
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They may very well not survive to celebrate the slaying of a devil in his own realm, or the city’s dictator in all but name, or the chosen of Bhaal herself, slippery like roaring rapids and twice as deadly. They could, however, celebrate doing one misguided constable’s job for her and prying loose one of death’s many claws sunk into the meat of the city. That would have to be enough.
Dolor has been slain, the Bhaalist murder plot has been interrupted, and the party has survived to see another day. This is a victory worth celebrating, and a major blow struck against Bhaal's Chosen...isn't it?
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Now, a long train trailed behind her, embroidered along the edges with skulls and ravens, and all manner of intricate artwork that drew another scandalized gasp from the woman who had tutted earlier.
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I Must Be Going When Destiny Calls by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
27 Sep 2025
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Eddie’s acting weird. After seven years together, Steve is more than used to that by now. It’s the natural way of the world when you hitch your wagon to the strangest set of horses you’ve ever met in your life. Loving Eddie Munson means strapping yourself in to a lifelong roller coaster ride and holding on for dear life as it goes around bends you never would have imagined.
Summer 1993
On vacation across the country, Eddie and Steve start to think about whether they've outgrown their life as it is.
Series
- Part 8 of I Am What I Am (I’m Not Apologizing)
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As if his luck couldn’t get any worse. Two hours in a cell, and his first visitor was the man who leapt dramatically into battle to save people he didn’t know with a catchphrase at the ready. The goblin would be better company.
All it takes to know a man is six conversations through six different sets of bars.
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If fatherhood had been stolen from his grasp, then a son was all he would ever be. It had come naturally to him once, and it did so again as he collapsed into Ulder’s embrace.
Wyll and Astarion receive the worst news expecting parents could receive. Who could ever handle it gracefully? -
Under the Shade of Another Oak by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
31 Jul 2025
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Halsin had stepped valiantly into a portal that blinked out of existence when their party was overwhelmed in combat. They hadn’t been close all those years ago, but Halsin had been the first to die, and Astarion would be the last as he was always destined to be. There was something meaningful in that.
Immortality leaves one with rather a lot of years to keep track of. 150 years since saving the realm. 146 years since marrying Wyll. 79 years since becoming a widow. 13 years since the last of his former companions passed on without him.
Of all the things Astarion has suffered in his long life, the one blow he's no longer capable of weathering is suffering all on his own. When he finds his way to the Shadow-Cursed lands in search of place to waste away in peace, the last thing he expects to find is a kindred spirit in similar need of healing.
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He had hoped the others might see his reasoning after spending so much time psychically linked, but apparently not. Seven years of adventuring had given him the right to call himself a hero; perhaps seven more would grant him the benefit of the doubt with those he held dear. The pedestal he waited upon until then was high enough to turn his stomach.
There is no beating Mizora. Wyll won't forget that just because a false opportunity to escape his pact shows up to tempt him. The others may not understand his reasoning, but it is a lesson he has learned well. There has been no chance to learn something new until now.
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“Are you kidding?” Steve asked. He grabbed an oven mitt and tucked the pan where it couldn’t do any more damage. “You grabbed a hot pan right out of the oven? Focus on what you’re doing for two seconds. Jesus.”
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The Chain You’re Dragging That Was Once Your Relief by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
09 Apr 2025
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It’s the same as before, but it isn’t. He’s in a hospital bed, but he can leave any time he wants. Eddie is dead but breathing, and Dustin is laughing, and Steve stalls out in the doorway of the room trying to make sense of it all.
Spring Break 1990
A phone call from the hospital about a car accident forces Steve to confront issues he thought were dealt with and appreciate what he has in life.
Series
- Part 7 of I Am What I Am (I’m Not Apologizing)
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Outrun the Loss by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
01 Mar 2025
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Maybe in another universe, there was someone waiting for the right words. He would save his voice for her.
Unable to accept the finality of Jinx’s death, Ekko uses what little of the anomaly’s energy remains to travel between worlds and find a version of the woman he loves that he can save.
Written as 28 interconnecting drabbles for Febuwhump 2025.
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Nothing Worthwhile Is Built Alone by GhostInTheClawMachine
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
11 Jan 2025
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Scar considered himself better than most at rolling with the punches, but even he had his limits. Every tantrum soothed without the help of his daughter’s second-favorite person wore another piece of him to dust. Every decision he made for the Firelights on Ekko’s behalf fueled the frustration simmering in his gut. There were no more fights to throw himself into, no punches to throw or weapons to swing to work out the knot building in his chest. There was only absence where once there had been companionship, and enough was enough.
In the aftermath of the fighting in Piltover, Ekko has been changed. Grief demands his attention, and he retreats from his duties with the Firelights to do so. Scar is more than willing to lead in his stead as he has done since his disappearance, but all things reach a breaking point eventually.